Ending the treaty limits does not transform American industry overnight. A decade and a half of low naval demand had hollowed out parts of the industrial base, especially facilities for battleship-grade armour. Gun-making machinery could be reused for other weapons, whereas specialised armour facilities were particularly vulnerable to closure. Commissioning also did not make a new battleship immediately available for battle: North Carolina and Washington were still working up away from Pearl Harbor, and South Dakotas entering service close to Coral Sea could not automatically join it. The proposed schedule therefore grows from the existing battleship programmes and their preparation times. An early batch of three Alaskas could be in service around the opening of the Pacific war and assigned to the exposed carriers as escorts and visible deterrents. Further trios might be ordered around 1939 and 1941 as capital-ship construction accelerates, spreading the programme across several building cycles.
Chapter · 34:00-39:49
An earlier programme still needs shipyard capacity
Breaking free of treaty limits in the mid-1930s could bring Alaskas forward with the North Carolina and South Dakota classes, but yards, armour plants, and gun production would still limit the pace.